“It is curious to observe the forms of the imperative mood plural which occur so frequently throughout the poem in the Oriel copy.  The forms ending in _-eth_ are about 31 in number, of which 17 are of French, and 14 of A.S. origin.  The words in which the ending _-eth_ is dropped are 42, of which 18 are of French, and 24 of A.S. origin.  The three following French words take both forms; avyse or avyseth, awayte or awayteth, wayte or wayteth; and the five following A.S. words, be or beth, kepe or kepeth, knele or knelyth, loke or loketh, make or maketh.  Thus the poet makes use, on the whole, of one form almost as often as the other (that is, supposing the scribe to have copied correctly), and he no doubt consulted his convenience in taking that one which suited the line best.  It is an instance of what followed in almost every case of naturalization, that A.S. inflections were added to the French words quite as freely as to those of native origin.  Both the _-eth_ and _-e_ forms are commonly used without the word ye, though. Be ye occurs in l. 58.  In the phrase avise you (l. 78), you is in the accusative.”

Commenting also on l. 71 of Caxton and Hill, Mr Skeat notices how they have individualised the general ‘child’ of the earlier Oriel text: 

“71.  Here we find child riming to mylde.  In most other places it is Johan.  The rime shows that the reading child is right, and Johan is a later adaptation.  The Oriel MS. never uses the word Johan at all; it is always child.”

I may remark also, that on the question lately raised by Mr Bradshaw, ’who before Hampole,[1] or after him, used you for the nominative as well as the correct ye,’ Hill uses both you and ye, see l. 47, 51, 52, &c., though so far as a hasty search shows, Lydgate, in his Minor Poems at least, uses ye only, as do Lord Berners in his Arthur of Lytil Brytayne, ab. 1530, the Ormulum, Ancren Riwle, Genesis and Exodus, William of Palerne, Alliterative Poems, Early Metrical Homilies, &c.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Pricke of Conscience, p. 127, l. 4659; and p. xvii.]

[Footnote 2:  Mr Skeat holds that in the various reading 3*ow drieth from the Univ.  Coll.  Oxford MS. (of the early part of the 15th century) to the Vernon MS. [th]ou drui3*est, l. 25, Passus 1, of the Vision of Piers Plowman, the 3*ow is an accusative, “exactly equivalent to the Gothic in the following passage—­’hwana [th]aursjai, gaggai du mis, i.e. whom it may thirst, let him come to me.’  John vii. 37.  I conclude that 3*ow is accusative, not dative.  The same construction occurs in German constantly, ‘es duerstet mich’ = it thirsts me, I thirst.”]